


(Not) just a mental exercise

by Winxhelina



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Mentions of Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, post-case chatting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9239612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winxhelina/pseuds/Winxhelina
Summary: After a mysterious murder turns out to be a not-so-mysterious suicide John and Sherlock find themselves discussing a topic that's difficult for both of them. Well, almost...





	

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I should finish this, before season 4 finishes airing. It is our darkest season yet and I add to it by writing something a little dark of my own.

_Oh, the good old times at Baker Street. The client shrieking at Sherlock, crying and screaming and Sherlock looking at her with an uncaring look, explaining that he had only spoken the truth. John had missed that. He really had. Why? He had no freaking idea._

“I didn’t kill her!” the woman begged, crying so hard it was nearly rendering her speech incomprehensible.  

“I wasn’t saying you did. You merely inspired her death. You should have no troubles in court,” Sherlock replied, sounding fed up and annoyed and nothing close to compassionate, which made John glare at him.

John was still glaring at him when she left, closing the door with a bang and still crying loud enough for John to hear her all the way to the street. Sherlock was looking out of the window, but John doubted it was with any great concern for the lady who just left.

“You **do** realize that court was the least of her worries?” John asked snappily.

Sherlock turned sharply, tall and proud, towering over John as he took a step closer: “What did you want me to say, John!? She **asked me to investigate the case**! All I told her was the truth! Should I have lied!?”

“No, but you could have been a little nicer about it.”

Sherlock sneered: “Honestly, John, I think you’ve forgotten all about me. Have you ever known me to be **nice** or have you gotten that wrapped up in your little fantasy version of me you have created of me in your little stories that you’ve forgotten what I’m like altogether!?”

John sighed deeply and took his seat in the armchair: ”Don’t be like that.”  
  
Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment: “I’m serious, John. It’s dangerous to have delusions about people like that. Look at that poor woman. Thinking her friend was some mysterious lady with a mysterious job who was killed when in the end it was a simple suicide.”  
  
“Even you believed her at first,” John noted. 

“She told her story so convincingly!” Sherlock agreed, frustrated: “Made her friend sound so **interesting** and complex and – in the end there was nothing there. She just couldn’t believe she would kill herself because that wouldn’t fit into her little world view.”

 “But you usually see past that,” John insisted: “You always say you see the truth and not what people want to see.”

“I only had her story to go by and she made an interesting storyteller,” Sherlock shrugged, looking a bit defeated as he sat down to face John: “I’ve wasted your time. This whole case was pointless. She’s wasted mine too of course, but…” Sherlock looked away and trailed off. Sherlock had other reasons not to see this case for what it was right away, but these he would not enclose. 

“I think it’s interesting. Gives you something to think about,” John argued.

“Does it?”

“Yeah. All these years she was friends with that girl and then when you went to investigate her it was like no one really knew who she was. Like it was all just pretence. All of her friends…”

 “I think they weren’t her friends. I’m no expert on the matter myself, but they all just seemed like colleagues. They took no real interest in her life.”  
  
John thought about it: ”They all said nice things about her. Said she was lively and hard-working and kind.”  
  
“Doesn’t mean that they knew her. If anything the outcome suggests the opposite to be true,” Sherlock said firmly and John didn’t argue.

 “But the client she – she spoke so warmly of her. They were definitely friends, they had known each other for years, she told us stories.”  


“And she was a convincing storyteller,” Sherlock agreed: ”She believed she knew the victim. Apart from what she did for living, which turned out to be extremely boring. Classified, but boring. I’m sure they were friends, but she did create an image of her which didn’t allow her to face the truth. She was so sold on it she even managed to sell the story to me. Briefly. It’s much the same thing you do with me.”

“I don’t idolize you that much,” John argued, but he fell very quiet then, thinking about it. It was true that sometimes he felt like he didn’t know Sherlock at all. He wondered if he would notice something were bothering Sherlock that heavily. Sherlock committing suicide was not a topic he liked to even briefly dwell on after already having done that for very long after his – disappearance. He still ran his eyes over his friend sharply, trying to see if there was anything he had missed.

 Sherlock had been thinking about suicide himself, although he figured he thought of death and murders and such more than an average person would. He noticed John staring so keenly and couldn’t help but to pull his robe around himself tighter.

 John was deeply bothered by this. Because surely Sherlock knew what he was thinking. He always did and the fact that he was drawing in on himself made it clear he had something to hide: “What is it?” he asked quietly, knowing Sherlock would catch up. He always followed his thought patterns perfectly.

“You’re the one staring John,” Sherlock pointed out.

John wasn’t fooled by this, calling the man’s bluff: “You know what I’m thinking.”

“You were wondering if you know me well enough that you would notice me getting suicidal. A painful topic for you that I was rather hoping not to address. But your question doesn’t make sense in that context so I couldn’t answer you,” Sherlock might not have become more considering when it came to everyone else, but when it came to John he had turned into someone soft and caring. No matter what he tried to make John believe.

 “You’re actually slightly off. I was wondering if you are hiding something from me.”

Sherlock smiled, a broad, proud, genuine smile: “Oh a great deal of things, but so do you.” 

“Me? Surely you’re kidding, Sherlock. You’ve known all about me since the moment you laid eyes on me.”

“Oh, but you couldn’t be more wrong, John,” Sherlock said, his voice soft and silky, deep and filled with wonder and awe: “You, John Watson, have never ceased to surprise me.”

John smiled, but did not recognize Sherlock's words for the sincere compliment they were. Instead he thought they were an attempt to apologize for Sherlock’s earlier behaviour: “I still think you should have been nicer to that client. I know you can be when you want to be.”

Sherlock seemed to consider this: “Don’t you think there is more reason to feel for her friend, Miss Josephine Gladstone?”

John didn’t seem to follow this: “Because she’s dead?”

“No, because we blew her cover. She didn’t want an audience to her death,” Sherlock noticed John flinch at that. He knew the memories that sentence evoked in John and he got up and turned away, drenched in quilt: “She didn’t want her friend to know she had been depressed or that she had chosen this. She… didn’t want people to cry for her, didn’t want the attention or to be missed, because she didn’t her friend to feel guilty or pained…” Sherlock explained, still staring outside.

When John didn’t say anything it was up to Sherlock to carry on: “Not to mention the fact that her only friend had abandoned her. Forgotten about her and moved on with her life so much that she saw there was little else for her.” Sherlock could sympathise with this particular feeling more than he ever had sympathized with a victim.

“How was she to know her feelings were that intense for her? I mean that goes beyond simple friendship.”

“She wasn’t meant to know,” Sherlock agreed, eager to change the topic. For some reason this was hitting him a little too close to home. So he went on to explain some of the more technical details:“She made her mistakes, of course. Understandable, she wasn’t stupid, but she wasn’t a mastermind or a serial killer either. I could have done better. Of course, my preferable plan would have involved more knowledge of chemistry than she ever h- “

“Wait your **preferable plan?!** ” Sherlock flinched at John’s harsh tone.

So he gathered himself and put on his warmest smile for John and softly said: ”Merely a mental exercise you see.”

“I don’t appreciate these kinds of mental exercises!” John snapped. He was fuming, his expression only showing anger and nothing else. Sherlock was partly glad for this, because it was this sort of anger that blinded John from often seeing things Sherlock did not wish would be observed. He did however not want John to leave. The man’s visits had grown so rare and infrequent and Sherlock missed them like a resident of a polluted city scene missed greenery and fresh air. One could survive without, but the days of that person’s life would surely be shortened. The quality of them heavily reduced.

 So Sherlock spoke in his softest, quietest and sincerest tones when he said: “My deepest apologies, John.”

It wasn’t enough. Sherlock had learnt in his recent years that even the most heartfelt of apologies would not sometimes be. As he watched the man leave from the window he reminded himself that years had also taught him that eventually John would return. If he waited long enough and was sufficiently patient. He was not sure how much patience there was left in him. The years had also taught him that just when he had begun to feel happiness for John’s presence something would bring them apart.

He still had his plan, the perfect plan, should he need it. Perhaps it was not just a mental exercise.


End file.
